[Sticky] Share your Bleaching Horror Stories

Im ashamed to say I destroyed my hair almost willingly, i knew what i was doing was wrong i knew my hair couldn't possibly survive the onslaught i would do but time was against me and i held out a lil hope that my hair was different, it could withstand it. I knew what i was doing was the wrong way about it and i knew from this forum and common sense what the right way about it wouldve been.

My story is from roughly a year ago. I was all over blue and loving it, got there with minimal damage, had been blue a few weeks and i was growing my hair. It was all one length, thick, healthy and past my shoulders. After work noticed I hadn't changed it from blue for a while and with a change of regional managers and a smackdown on visible tattoos and piercings they told me my hair needed to go back to a natural colour and quickly. They gave me a weekend off. I did a full head bleaching with the 8shade XXL maximum blonde followed by two colour b4s which still didn't shift my blue and left me with my blonde roots. I then did another round of XXL bleach the next day and it still hardly made a dent so i shoved a permanent brown on top. I was left with browny orange roots and everything else was disgusting blue green grey mud mess, not to mention my hair completely gave up so i shoved directions poppy red on it so at least the colour was an acceptable shade but then had to dye it back brown 2weeks later for a formal occassion. It wYas gummy when breaking when wet, i couldnt brush it or put my fingers through it without it coming away, my once curly hair was straight and lank and limp and dry it felt like straw but also fluffy. No amount of joico was bringing it back, i spent 3weeks moisturising as much as i could, kpak when i washed which was once a week, i had to leave my hair to dry then gently clip it back and plaster my fringe backwards with bobby pins i couldnt dare think bout using heat. I eventually went to the hairdresser to admit defeat and cut off damage, i ended up with 2inch layers and a massively choppy almost mullety type haircut cause i refused to lose length which i'd just spent a year growing. Extremely short layers on curly hair? Not a good look. I had to go back repeatedly for trims too cause the damage was so bad and never ending that really i shouldve just shaved my head.

A year on and my hair is down to my armpits still heavily layered but the shortest are chin length now but i have definately learned my lesson. It is in much better condition due to a year with 1 perm dye and only one bleach for my side flash and no heat styling, my curl is back too. But i havent even considered going near any bleach and im still terrified too even though i want to dip dye. Ive resigned myself to growing out all dye before i go back to a strong relationship with colours again so i've got a long wait to go considering i'm still growing my hair too.

I'm suffering from a slight mishap at the moment but I wouldn't say horror story. I re did my roots yesterday with XXL platinum blonde and due to the heat I only left it on for 20 minutes as opposed to the suggested 40. Even though the underneath of my hair was done last I have quite severe blisters and last night it felt like my entire scalp was sunburnt. I don't honestly know what I did wrong or how to avoid this is 6-8 weeks when my roots need doing again 🙁

Holly - if you don't need an awful lot of lift on your roots to get your colour to work, I'd suggest a bleach bath next time round, ideally with a 20vol peroxide developer. BUT - make sure your scalp is completely, 100% healed before you even think about putting any more chemicals on it, and do a skin patch test first as it sounds like you've got chemical burns on your scalp and this can lead to increased sensitivity to the chemicals in bleaches and dyes!  Also, if you put coconut oil on your hair & scalp before you bleach bath, it will help protect both your hair and your scalp from the chemicals in the bleach.

Thanks Mindi, I was going to do a bleach bath but chickened out at the last minute when I read that box dye could be used instead. My hair is naturally quite a dark brown but I think I may try a bleach bath next time around instead. I just find it weird that my scalp coped perfectly well with 30vol bleach all over for an hour about 6 weeks ago. Did I re bleach too soon? x

It may be down to the heat as bleach development is made more intense by hot temperatures, or it could be a sensitivity to something else in the box dye kit if it's a brand you haven't used before.  Either way, a bleach bath should be much gentler on your scalp, and the coconut oil will help protect your scalp as well.

Before I started dying my hair with veggies, I always wanted a bright red fringe (around the age of 20-21), so after bad results on my natural hair, I got me bleach bags and applied it on.
The first time it was pretty much like normally is for me - ginger - but I didnt know that my hair doesnt go light easy yet.
Frustrated and all - instantly applied bleach again, and so on for the next 2 weeks, probably about 4-5 times in total.
It was nearly white, and looked fried as hell - and there is nothing I could do about it. Applying perm reds on it resulted in red hair for 2 washes and ginger forever after :S.

Thankfully no hair been shed.

Yet...

I felt like some white hair on my very long tips and the whole "extension" look... So I went on my crazy ride again, frying the hell out of my hair which resulted in me being forced to cut it really short, losing about 80cms of hair in the process - mostly because I had HUGE chunks falling off everytime I would brush.

Yikes ladies I feel all your pain!

So in February I decided I wanted to go pink (I have been red for months wanted a bit of a change) my friend that I have known for many years who ( is a hair stylist for crying out loud) I asked him to assist with bleaching and application since I didn't want to do this on my own this time. Well so the bleaching started .... He left bleach on my hair for an hour and ten minutes !!!! I died inside after 30 minutes I was telling him he needs to take the bleach off (he's been a stylist for over twenty years!!!!!) he said no my hair can 'take it' and started laughing up a storm with his assistant . So it continued I was freaking out.. Finally when he took it out and washed it off and dyed it pink it was snapping and my head felt like chewing gum. ;( I was devastated. He said that it was suppose to happen and he styled it anyway as I kept quite. After when I got in my car to drive home I cried to myself on the ride home, I immediately came on here and voiced my problem and with the help from you ladies my hair has since revived 85% and I treat it with care and continue to use cococnut oil and less heat 🙂

My disaster happened in early 2006.

My hair was dyed black and my light/medium brown roots were coming through so it was extremely obvious. I decided I wanted to go blonde as it wouldn't be so drastic having blonde hair and brown roots whenever they came through. So I went to a salon (a salon inside a Tesco I may add - I was 17 and poor) and the hairdresser said she would put blonde highlights through my hair and lift the rest to a caramel colour. Having never been near bleach before, I trusted she knew what she was doing. So she put foils over my hair and left me under one of those heat things for what must have been an hour. I can't remember what she did to the rest of my hair, but when everything was washed and dried I had white roots, a yellow middle section and bright orange ends. I had to be at work that afternoon so I paid the £60 it cost me and left, then burst into tears in the car park!

I ended up calling in sick and dying my hair dark brown. A few weeks later I spotted the hairdresser while on break from work. Noticing my brown hair she said, "I could have dyed that for you if you weren't happy with it before" I just thought to myself, "Like I'm going to let you loose on my hair again!"

Gosh that reminds me of my own hairdresser disaster. I had had my hair dyed dark brown, and wanted to go blonde. The hairdresser did a full head of highlights, but started at the back with 40 vol. Because my hair is so thick, it took an hour to do my whole head, and she left me for another half hour to cook. By the time I got the bleach off, the hair at the back of my hair was grey and crispy, while the front was dark yellow. It looked HIDEOUS but because I am so shy and non-confrontational, I paid up and went home in tears. It was the middle of summer but I had to wear a bobble hat to work for three days until I could go somewhere else to get it sorted. Thankfully the second hairdresser knew what she was doing and evened everything out but those three days were FOUL!

I used to think nothing of double processing (or more!) my hair - it's a miracle I even have any left these days, let alone the fact that it's actually in good condition. My most serious infraction was a couple of years ago when I went from box dyed black to platinum blonde - wait for it - in *two days* with no Colour B4. Ouch! I bleached at least twice (once with 40vol) AND used a blonde box dye. I literally have no idea how my hair survived that. :-[

I've just read all these and I am looking at the boxes of max blonde in front of me and seriously considering just going box red again instead of box bleach and funky semis...

I had a bleach horror of my own making 5 years ago.  I had used smart beauty colours which contain peroxide on my hair to do a red/black combination for some months but I wanted to go blonde so I thought I'd double bleach it, having never got past orange before.  So I bleached, rinsed (or so I thought) DIDN'T condition and then blow dried to get it ready for round 2. 
As I rinsed off round 2 I had inches of hair snapping off in my hand right at the crown where I hadn't rinsed the first lot very well.  I had to disguise my tufts with product or scarves until I got to a hairdresser a week later and went for a crop (this, incidentally was a lovely blonde and I at least used some nice colours in the spikes at the back)

I swore I wouldn't do that again!

I have prelightened since then whacked Nice n Easy on as their ashes sort out the glaring orange colour - I only just realised that this equals double processing....oops :S

il have to dig some pics out iv been platnuim to red to back again for past ten years or so i have been knownm to bleach my hair 4 or 5[+ perminant blonde colour] times in space of a 2 days i will just keep at it till i get blonde but i have to keep my hair short when i do because it goes fluffy and crap, iv been every shade of yellow going but im lucky my hair takes the bleachings well and has never fallen out or completly broken off, only thing i hate is live colour blondes they make me orangy yellow everytime , i think im a bleachaholic

I decided back in 2010 that I wanted to go bright pink even though I'd been dying my hair black for about 4 years straight. I bought blonde box dyes and triple processed my hair in the space of about 3 hours. The condition was awful! I keep the pink a few weeks before going all black again and then deciding I wanted blue streaks so I started to bleach my hair AGAIN. Safe to say it didn't last very long and I ended up getting it cut from my breasticles to my ears 🙁

I then decided dark colours aren't for me and have bleach my hair at least once every two months since then to change colours. 🙁 Which leaves the ends of my hair dead and it barely grows so I am obsessed with keeping my lengh so I never cut it.

I hate pretty colours and having no self control 🙁

Well my story isn't about my own negligence but more about my scalp not liking XXL. I've had bright hair on and off since I was 18, it's always been DIY, so I knew more or less how to handle bleach. One day i decided that XXL could be a good option. I did all the prep, didn't wash my hair for a couple of days, applied coconut oil, even left it on for less than the suggested time, result by next morning my scalp was oozing pus.... I'm quite sensitive  to something in it, three months later after a full recover I've found L'oreal Platinum paste, yes, it is expensive but it leaves my dark brown hair light enough to tone it to white, and the best bit is my  scalp and is always left healthy!

Well my story isn't about my own negligence but more about my scalp not liking XXL. I've had bright hair on and off since I was 18, it's always been DIY, so I knew more or less how to handle bleach. One day i decided that XXL could be a good option. I did all the prep, didn't wash my hair for a couple of days, applied coconut oil, even left it on for less than the suggested time, result by next morning my scalp was oozing pus.... I'm quite sensitive  to something in it, three months later after a full recover I've found L'oreal Platinum paste, yes, it is expensive but it leaves my dark brown hair light enough to tone it to white, and the best bit is my  scalp and is always left healthy!

Oh my god charimito... that sounds awful! D: I can't believe that happened to you. I can relate, I have very sensitive skin and when I bleached the first time my scalp was kind of sore and red around the edges. I'm glad you've fully recovered from it!!